Systemic Acquired Resistance in Plants

The ability to systemically induce defenses after a local infection, as in systemic acquired resistance (SAR), allows plants to control disease spread to additional organs and ward-off new infections. The activation of SAR requires communication between the pathogen-infected and the uninfected organs, resulting in the priming of defenses for faster and stronger activation in response to subsequent infections. The protective effect of SAR is transferred to the next generation resulting in progeny plants with enhanced disease resistance. The long-term goal of this project is to understand long-distance communication in plant defense, in particular to characterize the signaling molecule(s) and mechanism(s) that facilitate communication between the pathogen-infected and uninfected organs. PI is Dr. Jyoti Shah (UNT) and Co-PIs are Dr. Robby Petros (UNT) and Dr. Barney Venables (UNT).Funding is from the National Science Foundation